How Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Compares to Classic Jurassic Park

A new video released by Universal Pictures offers a detail driven comparison of the original Jurassic Park movie to the upcoming Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The video features commentary from the likes of directors Steven Spielberg, J.A. Bayona, and Colin Trevorrow as well as actors Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

Released in the summer of 1993, the original Jurassic Park was a revolutionary film in several respects. Its $50.1 million opening weekend set the record for the largest opening weekend of any film at the time. Then, it went on to surpass Spielberg's E.T: The Extraterrestrial to become the highest-grossing film of all-time. Part of that was because it set a new standard for digital effects, for which it won every Oscar it was nominated for, including Best Visual Effects. After initially spawning two sequels, it remained on ice until it got another sequel in 2015: Jurassic World.

The video, which can be viewed above, goes beyond analyzing similar shots from the two movies, such as the moments in both films when the heroes first pass through the iconic theme park gates. It also delves into the common themes both movies share and the differences between the kinds of stories that they tell. "Jurassic World was a celebration of something we all love. This movie is different," said Trevorrow, who directed Jurassic World and co-wrote the script for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. "This movie is pushing something that we know forward into the future."

"You have everything you need in a Jurassic movie," agrees Fallen Kingdom director J.A. Bayona, "But then it gets more claustrophobic. It has this kind of Gothic element, and you start to build up the tension in a very different way." This reference to Gothic horror seems to hint at what fans of the franchise can expect to see in the second half of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Early Fallen Kingdom trailers gave away the "twist" of the movie, which will see the Jurassic World heroes called upon to aid in a rescue mission to retrieve as many living dinosaurs as possible from the decrepit theme park before a nearby volcano erupts. They will discover, however, that the people backing the mission have less than altruistic intentions and intend to sell the dinosaurs to the highest bidder as the ultimate status symbol. The first half of the movie will play like a traditional Jurassic Park movie, with the heroes struggling to survive in the wild. The second half will center around their infiltration of a spooky mansion where the secret dinosaur auctions are being held.

It remains to be seen how successful Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom will be in wooing audiences and critics in its attempts to switch genres mid-film and offer up two conflicting styles of horror in a single movie. If there 's any director capable of such an act, however, it's J.A. Bayona, who has dabbled in monster movies, traditional horror, and disaster films with his work on Penny Dreadfuland movies The Impossible and The Orphanage, not to mention A Monster Calls.Based on this footage alone, it seems likely that Universal is looking at another box office hit.